For a long time I stopped answering my telephone (landline) because the overwhelming percentage of calls were marketing. I've started answering some calls lately, and I don't understand what's happening. I answer a call, and all I hear is several seconds of dead microphone, then a click and the connection is broken. They aren't the typical robo calls, because there's no canned announcement that starts playing as soon as I pick up. These are strictly just dead air, then disconnect.

Has anyone else experienced this? Do you have any idea what it's about?

Like you, I rarely answer my landline since most calls are scams or telemarketers. I get these "silent" calls too. My guesses are that

a) they're automated testing to see what time is best to call and get a live person so they can have their own live person try to sell you something (or scam you)b) automated call center with multiple calls per operator, and someone else answered before you didc) crooks testing to see if anyone is home so they'll know when to stage a B&E at your place

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I get them too. I assumed they are either robocalls that failed to properly activate or robocalls that are just testing for human responses to improve their calling lists.

Several possibilities, bit I suspect the latter is a good portion. Verifying active numbers and a potential human to talk to. With stuff like Google Voice, there are probably a large number of phone numbers that go right to VM and that are either unused, rarely used, or created to be given to sales people.

Like you, I rarely answer my landline since most calls are scams or telemarketers. I get these "silent" calls too. My guesses are that

a) they're automated testing to see what time is best to call and get a live person so they can have their own live person try to sell you something (or scam you)b) automated call center with multiple calls per operator, and someone else answered before you didc) crooks testing to see if anyone is home so they'll know when to stage a B&E at your place

A few years ago I would have gone with (c). These days, I suspect that (a) is more likely.

I guess I'll just revert to letting the answering machine earn its keep.

VERY possible. I have a fax machine, but it's on a dedicated line/number. And I was getting so much fax spam that I've had to resort to keeping the machine turned off except when someone notifies me that they want to send a fax, or when I need to send a fax. I was literally going through reams of paper on junk faxes for every legitimate page I received. So it makes sense that these calls could be robo fax machines hoping to encounter a fax tone.

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